As the number and complexity of electrical circuits in modern automobiles has increased, electrical connectors having large numbers of terminals have become more common. It is not unusual for a single electrical connector to contain 32 individual terminals. In conventional electrical connectors, the movement of a pair of connectors into engagement with one another causes male and female terminals housed in the respective connectors to slide into contact with one another. A certain degree of normal force between the terminal contact surfaces is required for good electrical conductivity between the terminals, resulting in a relatively high level of frictional resistance to insertion of the mating terminals into engagement with one another. The greater the number of terminals in a connector, the greater the total force required to overcome this resistance to engagement of the connectors. Connectors having a large number of terminals may be so difficult to mate that to do so by hand, as is often required in a production line environment, is quite difficult.
Most electrical connectors include some type of latching mechanism for holding the two connectors in mated engagement with one another. This generally takes the form of a spring latch arrangement which further adds to the amount of resistance to inserting the two connectors into engagement with one another.
This high insertion force problem has been dealt with in the past by connector assemblies which employ a two-step connector mating operation. In such an assembly, the first step involves moving the connector bodies which house the terminals into mating engagement with one another, but the male and female terminals are positioned within the bodies such that the terminals themselves do not yet make contact with one another. In the second step, a button, lever, or switch is actuated to move one or the other, or both, of the sets of terminals relative to their connectors to bring the terminals into physical and electrical contact. This procedure has the obvious drawback of requiring two separate actions on the part of the person or machine making the connection, thus making the assembly process more complicated and time consuming.
It is known to provide mating connectors with cam-type means which deflect a first set of terminals into contact with mating terminals as the two connectors are inserted into engagement with one another. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,900.
It would be desirable to provide an electrical connector assembly in which first and second mating connectors may be inserted into engagement with one another without a large amount of insertion force and without requiring a secondary mating operation.